Kidnap terror for 534 victims

QUEENSLAND accounted for more than 10 per cent of kidnapping cases across Australia last financial year, well behind the nation’s worst abduction hotspot NSW.

The 59 kidnaps across the Sunshine State included a woman allegedly abducted at knifepoint on Chevron Island in April 2020. She suffered minor injuries.

Of 534 kidnappings and abductions in the 2019-20 year, 225 of them were in NSW, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Victoria recorded the next highest number with 158 people abducted or kidnapped, while Queensland and South Australia had 59 recorded kidnap cases.

In Victoria, NSW and South Australia, more women than men were kidnapped and most of the women were in the 20 to 34 age bracket.

It was a different story in Queensland.

The statistics showed there were more men than women kidnapped, and the age range of most victims was 19 and younger. Most kidnap victims in Queensland are abducted by strangers.

Across Australia the most kidnappings took place in a residential location and more knives were used than guns.

But in the vast majority of cases, there was no weapon used, according to the ABS.

In NSW, Victoria and SA, most of the kidnappers were known to their victims, either as family members or someone in their wider circle.

The Northern Territory was the only state or territory to record no kidnappings

The overall number of kidnappings has dropped slightly in the past 10 years. In 2010, there were 597 kidnappings, but the numbers are up from 2015 when it was 511.

Police clear-up rates in NSW, Victoria and Queensland show the offender was nabbed within 30 days of the kidnap in more than half the abduction cases.

In the past year there has been a spate of kidnap for ransom cases but with a twist.

These cases have involved “virtual kidnappings” targeting mainly Chinese students with families that were perceived to be rich.

Eight incidents of virtual kidnappings were reported to the NSW Police last year, with the scammers obtaining more than $3m in ransom payments from overseas.

In one recent case, two Chinese students were involved after being psychologically manipulated by a crime gang.

A 22-year-old male university student was convinced by scammers posing as Chinese authorities that he had to hide another female student as she was a protected witness.

Police said the 18-year-old female student had also been conned with threats from the scammers pretending to be Chinese police, claiming she was implicated in a crime.

The NSW Crime Commission has reported that gangsters kidnapping gangsters for large ransoms of illegal drugs was the biggest trend in organised crime in NSW last year.

A NSWCC report said in many cases the victims were tortured during their kidnapping in an attempt to get their family members to pay the ransom.